I was being cyberbullied. And the person leading the charge was none other than my own biological mother. Years ago, she secretly gave away our family’s entire fortune, including our house. She forced me to take out student loans and work multiple part-time jobs just to survive. Now that she’s older and broke, she wants me to take care of her. In her dreams! 1 I was scrolling through TikTok one evening when I stumbled upon a video of an elderly mother traveling thousands of miles to find her daughter. The woman in the video was my biological mother, whom I hadn't seen in years. She wept in front of the camera, her eyes swollen and red. She claimed that a few years ago, after a minor argument, her daughter cut off all contact with her. Now, realizing her mistakes, she wanted to find her daughter and apologize face-to-face. But her daughter had blocked her on every platform and refused to see her. The comment section was overwhelmingly taking her side. TikTok's algorithm is truly something else. The account I was viewing belonged to my mother herself. On her profile, there were several other videos with a similar theme. Each one expressed her deep remorse, while subtly painting me as a cold, heartless daughter. Of course, not every single commenter was buying it. Occasionally, there were voices of doubt. But those dissenting voices didn't last long before they were bullied into deleting their comments by her supporters. "This poor woman is already suffering so much, and you have the nerve to doubt her?" "Do we always need a perfect victim?" 2 I opened Twitter and switched to my burner account. Just as I expected. My mentions and comments were all at 99+. My message requests were overflowing with the most vile "greetings" from strangers. Yes, I was being cyberbullied. And the one spearheading it was my own mother. Someone had used the name of the university my mom mentioned in her videos to track down my burner account through the school's official page. "Holy shit, she actually has the nerve to come looking for you?" My roommate and best friend, Chloe, had also seen my mom's videos. She stormed into my room, phone in hand, looking furious. I showed her the 99+ notifications on my Twitter. "Not only does she have the nerve, but her plan is working." The comments under my public tweets were a sea of insults, and my DMs were filled with people demanding an explanation. With just a few videos, my mother had managed to turn her long-lost daughter into public enemy number one. I was actually quite thankful that I inherited her ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness. Otherwise, facing this barrage of hate, I might have lost sleep due to anxiety. Maybe even fallen into depression. Chloe, seemingly realizing something, suddenly said, "Thank god you were prepared..." I offered a small smile. Yes, I was prepared. The digital footprints those self-righteous netizens found were crumbs I had deliberately left behind. Everything on my public Twitter account was preparation for this exact day. Because years ago, I already knew this day would come. 3 My falling out with my mother happened right before I started college. My dad used to run a fairly successful diner. But during my senior year of high school, my dad passed away from an illness, and my mom immediately sold the diner. Considering my dad had just died, I understood her decision. Our family had saved up a good amount of money over the years, and our house was fully paid off. So even without the diner's income, my mom and I wouldn't have to worry about money for the rest of our lives. But I never expected that right before I left for college, my mom would suddenly lose her mind. "I sold the house," my mom announced out of nowhere. "What?" I couldn't process what she was saying. With housing prices skyrocketing and inventory tight, selling meant it would be incredibly difficult to buy a new place. My mom acted like she didn't even hear me and continued, "I've donated all our savings, including the money from selling the house." "Lily, for your college tuition, you'll need to apply for student loans." She paused, then added, "As for living expenses, you can use your winter and summer breaks, and weekends, to work part-time. I'm sure you can earn enough yourself." I was completely blindsided by this barrage of news. "Mom, please tell me you're joking. This isn't funny," I said, my voice tight. As far as I knew, between the money from selling the diner and our savings, we had at least a million dollars. Not to mention the house... "I'm not joking," she said, dead serious. "I know you've been watching those wilderness survival videos lately. If you want to experience that, I can help you figure something out, but you can't just..." Before I could finish, my mom cut me off impatiently. "Lily, are you not understanding me? I donated all our money. I am not humoring you." "Instead of wasting time here, you better hurry up and figure out how to apply for those student loans. Don't blame me when school starts and you have no money for tuition." Hearing this, a deep sense of despair washed over me. 4 Ever since my dad died, my mom had stopped joking around with me. But this was huge. She hadn't breathed a word of it beforehand. So even though she had laid it all out, a tiny part of me still held onto hope. After all, with the house money, she had well over two million dollars. Even a saint reincarnated would hesitate before giving all that away at once. But when I checked her bank account balance and saw zero, my hope shattered. "Something this massive, and you didn't even tell me before giving it all away?" I was so angry I could barely breathe. My mom just replied coldly, "Lily, this is the money your father and I worked hard for. It has nothing to do with you. How I choose to handle it is my business." "Even if I didn't donate it, even if I burned it all, you still wouldn't have a say." At those words, tears finally spilled down my cheeks. I thought that after my dad died, my mom and I, depending solely on each other, shared a special bond. I never imagined this was how she truly felt. "You're eighteen now. Legally, I have no obligation to support you anymore," my mom said with absolute cruelty. I thought back to her obsession with those wilderness survival videos over the past six months and couldn't help but ask, "So you've been waiting for this day all along, haven't you?" "Yes," my mom admitted readily. She pointed to a few cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the living room. "I've already bought all my gear." "I negotiated with the buyer; you can stay here until you leave for college, so you have a place for a little while longer." 5 I felt like the sky had fallen. The last time I felt this way was when my dad died. I grew up middle-class, so I had never really experienced hardship. And now, I was suddenly being told I had to rely on loans for college and work part-time just to eat... My mom was ruthless enough to not leave me a single dime. "If you want to do charity, I won't stop you. But I'm your daughter, and you couldn't even leave me enough for basic tuition and living expenses?" I genuinely couldn't understand why she would do this. "Lily, you're eighteen. You need to learn to be independent," my mom said, looking at me with undisguised disdain. "Do you know how many kids out there can't even afford high school? I supported you through graduation; you should be grateful." "So you're saying you'd rather abandon your own flesh and blood to help people you don't even know?" I asked, my eyes red. But my mom dodged the question. "The money is already donated. There's no point in arguing about it now." As if afraid I wouldn't believe her, she showed me her text history with a real estate agent. It turned out she had been planning to sell the house long before my final exams, just waiting for me to turn eighteen. 6 To ensure I could actually attend college, I had to put this situation aside temporarily and focus on securing my student loans. I had never looked into it before and had no idea what the process was. I had to research everything online and consult with my high school counselor. Meanwhile, my mom had absolutely no intention of helping me. While I was running around getting my application materials together, my mom packed her bags and left. Just like when she donated all our money, she didn't say a word to me. If I hadn't noticed her things missing and called her, she probably never would have told me. Over the phone, my mom said, "Lily, when school starts, you'll have to get there yourself. I won't be dropping you off." Maybe I had heard too many cruel things from her lately, because hearing this, I felt completely numb. When I didn't respond, my mom added, "Don't blame me for being a tough mother. You're not a kid anymore. You need to learn to survive on your own. Don't expect me to hold your hand for everything." "Have I ever expected you to?" I asked, my voice devoid of emotion. When my dad died, she cried every day and handled nothing. Even my dad's funeral arrangements were handled by me with the help of relatives. The line went silent for a moment. My mom replied coldly, "If you're upset about this, we can just cut ties. It's not like I'm expecting you to take care of me when I'm old anyway." With that, she hung up without a second thought. 7 I was having breakfast with Chloe when the media started calling. These journalists were relentless. Just by piecing together clues online, they managed to track down my contact info. I agreed to a one-hour interview. The condition was that they couldn't edit or reorder my words out of context, and my face had to be blurred out. Desperate for the exclusive, the reporter agreed. But just to be safe, Chloe set up a camera on a tripod nearby to record everything. The reporter asked, "Have you been in contact with your mother?" I shook my head, squeezing out a few strategic tears. "There are things the internet doesn't know. The truth is, long before I started college, she had already broken my heart." I then showed her the barrage of abusive DMs and comments I had received. "I understand that strangers who don't know the full story might use this kind of language. I get it." "But she's different. We both know exactly what happened back then." "Yet even as I'm being cyberbullied, she hasn't stepped up to clarify anything... How could I possibly reach out to her under these circumstances?" The reporter paused, then asked, "Are you saying there's more to the story from back then?" I nodded with a bitter smile. "Right before I left for college, she suddenly informed me that she had sold our house and donated all the money, along with our savings." "She told me to take out loans for school and work part-time for living expenses." "She even left without telling me." I grabbed a tissue and wiped away my tears. After a moment to compose myself, I continued, "When I got back from finalizing my loan paperwork, I realized she was gone. I called her, and she told me she was cutting ties and that I wouldn't have to worry about taking care of her when she got old." The reporter looked shocked; she clearly hadn't anticipated this. I forced a smile. "To be honest, at that time, the house plus our savings amounted to well over two million dollars." "And she donated all of it?" The reporter's eyes widened. "She didn't leave me a single cent." I looked down, involuntarily recalling my first days of college. 8 "When I first started college, I had so little money I wouldn't eat breakfast, terrified that if I ate one meal, I wouldn't have enough for the next." I wasn't just trying to play the victim. At the very beginning, I truly lived like that. "During the hardest times, I would just buy a bowl of plain rice and pour the free cafeteria soup over it. If I got hungry at night, I just drank lots of water." As I spoke, the tears flowed again. Chloe, standing by the camera, wiped her own eyes. She had witnessed my struggles firsthand. "To save money on shampoo, I chopped my hair off." I pulled out a photo from my freshman year and showed it to the reporter. Seeing the photo, the reporter's eyes also grew a bit misty. She asked, "Did your mother contact you at all during college?" "No." I shook my head. "Even though she knew what university I was at, she never once came to see me." I looked up, tears still streaming down my face. "During my sophomore year, I had acute appendicitis. I needed surgery, but I had no money." I looked over at Chloe and smiled through my tears. "In the end, it was my roommate, Chloe, who paid for my surgery." "As they were wheeling me into the operating room, I kept thinking: a roommate I had only known for a year was willing to help me in my darkest hour, yet my own biological mother..." I paused. "...could be so cruel." "After all this time, have you forgiven her?" the reporter asked. A slow smile crept onto my lips. "If she had truly donated that money to charity, I might have found it in my heart to forgive her. There really are people in this country who can't even afford to go to school." "If?" The reporter caught the key word. I chuckled and said slowly, "But from what I've discovered, she never actually donated that money..." 9 I was about to elaborate when I saw Chloe frowning. "Sorry, let me interrupt for a second." She walked over with her phone and whispered, "Lily, you're trending on Twitter. And they're destroying you." Hearing this, the reporter across from me immediately grabbed her phone, likely checking Twitter. I took the phone from Chloe. The screen was on the trending topic tearing me apart. The live feed for the hashtag was filled with uninformed users condemning my cruelty. Of course, there were a few scattered tweets questioning my mom's narrative. I clicked into a few of the top tweets and realized my mom had posted another video playing the victim. A large influencer account had picked it up, and it shot straight to the trending page. This influencer, completely ignorant of the actual situation, based solely on my mom's video, concluded that I was a heartless monster who abandoned the mother who raised me. With their dramatic embellishments, I sounded like the devil incarnate. The comments were calling to doxx me. That comment alone had tens of thousands of likes. Chloe saw the tweet too. She was furious. "This person is literally spreading libel! I'm finding a lawyer to gather evidence right now. We're taking legal action. Let's see if they keep running their mouth then!" "Yeah," I said, handing the phone back to Chloe. "I'll leave that to you." The reporter looked back and forth between me and Chloe. "This is..." I smiled. "She was my college roommate, and she's my best friend." She's also my savior.
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